Jay and I have a new outlook on the way we are doing things here for our last six months. I think both of us went through the culture shock thing last month and things that seem to keep going wrong didn't really help our situation... but I think we are both past it now and have a better attitude on how we are going to approach these next months. We are really starting to enjoy it here again and getting out there and exploring always helps our cause. After our awesome muddy weekend in Puli with the music festival we realized we need to start getting out as much as possible. We just finished up about 4 months of studying Chinese and I think we finally have a good basic level down. We now plan to take some time off from Chinese so that we can start exploring our surroundings whenever possible and we will start back up again as soon as possible. We of course started our hash again 2 weekends ago with a nice long run about 14 kilometers. Then last week we were very active. We bought a membership to an outdoor pool, which in such a tropical and hot country it is really difficult to come across an outdoor pool because no one here likes to get any sun. But it is really nice with and olympic sized outdoor pool, and indoor pool, mineral pools, jet pools, hot tubs, and water pressure things, where Jay and I layed down on this plank that looked as if maybe I was going to be put to death and then these fives bursts of water come from the holes in the ceiling and pound your back almost strong enough to look in the mirror afterwards to make sure it didn't break the skin
. It really feels good after you get used to the pain. It is supposed to help with circulation among other things, not sure what. But that will be our new place as long as it is sunny outside... which also is hard to come by this time of the year since it is still plum rain season. This past weekend we had a really fun hash run. It was pouring rain and with an 8 k run through the dense forest of Taiwan ... it can get really muddy. At one point I crawled on my hands and knees to find that once I got to the top of the cliff I was slidding all the way back down.. Lukily Jay was there to stand as a road block and stop me from having to climb back up for 20 minutes. We really enjoyed running through the mud. It's much better to embrace the rain than sit inside and wish it wasn't raining. Jay and I have also been signed up to set a hash trail on July 12th. THis involves a lot of work. It is not as if you just go out and find some sort of looping trail. You have to go out and bushwack through bamboo and head up hills 
and find fake trail that are going to get the runners of course for a little while so that Jay and I (the hares) can make sure they won't catch us. Anyways on Sunday after our hard run we set off to the mountains and found a pretty good location to set a run. We found a huge buddhist temple that will be a good place to have the runners go around the mountain ridges that look down at the temple. IT was fun to go out a try to figure out a run altough it will prabably take about 4 or 5 more trips out there, exspecially since this is our first time to set one. One thing I learned while going out looking for trail on Sunday was that my fear of spiders has increased and I seriously can't hardly look at them and that Taiwan has some of the biggest spiders I have seen in my life. THe pictures I have here don't really do them justice. But you can kind of see the spider compared to the bananas. But we seriously saw about 20 of them and they were all huge. They were more like a man eating spider. I was happy to see that at some points I would make Jay walk in front of me and he would start jumping ten feet at a falling leaf. I was glad to know he was also a little scared. But of course I kept making him try to take pictures of them "Get closer honey, Maybe you can put your hand next to it to get perspective" The response "Hell now I am not doing that....do you see that thing"
. It really feels good after you get used to the pain. It is supposed to help with circulation among other things, not sure what. But that will be our new place as long as it is sunny outside... which also is hard to come by this time of the year since it is still plum rain season. This past weekend we had a really fun hash run. It was pouring rain and with an 8 k run through the dense forest of Taiwan ... it can get really muddy. At one point I crawled on my hands and knees to find that once I got to the top of the cliff I was slidding all the way back down.. Lukily Jay was there to stand as a road block and stop me from having to climb back up for 20 minutes. We really enjoyed running through the mud. It's much better to embrace the rain than sit inside and wish it wasn't raining. Jay and I have also been signed up to set a hash trail on July 12th. THis involves a lot of work. It is not as if you just go out and find some sort of looping trail. You have to go out and bushwack through bamboo and head up hills 
and find fake trail that are going to get the runners of course for a little while so that Jay and I (the hares) can make sure they won't catch us. Anyways on Sunday after our hard run we set off to the mountains and found a pretty good location to set a run. We found a huge buddhist temple that will be a good place to have the runners go around the mountain ridges that look down at the temple. IT was fun to go out a try to figure out a run altough it will prabably take about 4 or 5 more trips out there, exspecially since this is our first time to set one. One thing I learned while going out looking for trail on Sunday was that my fear of spiders has increased and I seriously can't hardly look at them and that Taiwan has some of the biggest spiders I have seen in my life. THe pictures I have here don't really do them justice. But you can kind of see the spider compared to the bananas. But we seriously saw about 20 of them and they were all huge. They were more like a man eating spider. I was happy to see that at some points I would make Jay walk in front of me and he would start jumping ten feet at a falling leaf. I was glad to know he was also a little scared. But of course I kept making him try to take pictures of them "Get closer honey, Maybe you can put your hand next to it to get perspective" The response "Hell now I am not doing that....do you see that thing"My reply " Of course I can see it, that is why I am standing way over here, I thought you weren't scared of spiders"
Jay "Yeah but they supposidly can jump like 5 feet and I don't like the looks of those fangs"
Jay "Yeah but they supposidly can jump like 5 feet and I don't like the looks of those fangs"
I couldn't disagree with him. I was standing there almost Hyperventilating I was so scared of it. Anyways Jay and I are enjoying Taiwan even more these days. And I think it will continue with the things we have planned to d
o. 
o. 
1 comment:
Those things are huge!! I con't deal with it. I'd be too scared. I hate those things! Blazing a trail for the hash sounds like a lot of work but also a lot of fun. And the photos of the area where you plan to run look amazing. Wonderful scenery! Jess and I leave for Cancun this coming weekend. I'm excited to be leaving the country, and it's her first time in Mexico. So we'll get to go snorkeling and see some of the Mayan temples. Should be a blast. Take care of yourselves and don't let those spiders attack Jay as you're making him get as close as possible.
love and hugs,
Paul
Post a Comment